Driving down the Don Valley Parkway in the blistering sunshine, I had one leg lazily crossed over the other, my snow boot resting by the radio. I was with Mr. Swipey, helping him deliver a production van to the east side of town for the film crew he was working with. I felt good. The special kind of good that you feel while driving, when you're sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle that makes you wanna do the "my hand is a dolphin" gesture out of the window.
I was on a high from a flat viewing I'd had that morning. At the end of my tether, I had agreed to go see a room which didn't really fit my criteria: it was only for two months, and was about $150 out of my budget. But here was the thing: the girl who was renting the room was in-between Toronto and Berlin, with her music career. There were three other flatmates, two with regular jobs, but one of them was the lead singer of a local band which were gaining a bit of popularity. I had come in and looked at the room, then sat down with both the musicians and we talked about what it's like starting out in Toronto, they recommended places to play and find band members, giving me suggestions of where to look for internships. I had tiny little stars in my eyes, these guys are so, so cool. I had a good feeling in my gut about that place. Who cares if it's a little more expensive? Who cares that it's only for two months? I knew it was right.
But I'd have to wait until that evening to decide if I wanted to live there. I had another flat to view at 7pm, and the whole day to kill with Mr. Swipey. We were listening to Shift, a show on CBC Radio that starts off with classical music and gradually sweeps through a host of genres, ending with contemporary. A country song was finishing off as I started to tell Swipey about the terrible day I had experienced (aka The LOST WALLET Day) when he cut me off to turn up the radio - "OK, sorry to interrupt you, but you have to listen to this song!"
This was the song:
Cue Mr. Swipey and I rockin' out in the van, nodding heads to the jingling eighties beat, hurtling through the east side: "Spadina bus? The Spadina bus! Spadina bus!?! It's the SPADINA BUS!" As he drove Swipey explained that this was a song written about the transport system (the TTC) in Toronto, mainly the bus that used to run down Spadina Avenue, funnily enough. Spu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-Spadina Bus!
We dropped the van off at the rental parking lot and took a long subway ride back downtown, sucking on blackcurrant Strepsils while discussing Roland Barthes' symposium (we are SO INTELLIGENT AND CULTURED!). The rest of the afternoon passed by with a combination of pizza and beer in a small joint on Bathurst, and then Swipey introduced me to the record mecca that is Sonic Boom. We rifled through 99 cent vinyl and I whimpered over the fact that I couldn't buy any of them as I didn't have my record player. When I get my room, I promised myself, eyeing up the turntables for sale.
I was hanging around the B's of Rock/Pop in the store when I realised that I had to get the address of the next flat I was going to see that evening. I clicked through my e-mails and found the number of the girl that I'd been speaking to. I gave her a call.
Flatgirl: Hellao?
Olivia: Hi, uh, Annie?
Flatgirl: Yah!
Olivia: Yeah, it's Olivia, we talked over e-mail about the room? I was gonna come round tonight but I don't have the address…
Flatgirl: Yah! Yah come roOUuuUuunnnd girl! Come rounddd giiiirl!
Olivia: I don't have your address?
Flatgirl: Oh man I'm sawry girl! YeaAah I'll text it to ya! Sorry I'm losin' my voice a little... Come rouUunnd fer sherrr!
It was like talking to Ke$ha on the phone. The way her voice was cracking on the emphasised words… it sounded like she'd just woken up from a 24-hour bender in a Miley Cyrus music video. I was wary, not only because of that but because she used the word "girl," which, when used by another girl you don't know, kind of feels like an aural pat-on-the-head.
Undeterred, I bid goodbye to Swipey and walked down through the darkening streets. The pavements were covered with ice, so I tried to keep my balance by lifting my feet with care with each step I took - an action that always reminds me of a dressage pony. Eventually I was counting house numbers: 87, 85, 83… Huh… I found the right place. Looks… alright. I rapped on the door, hearing muffled beats: oohn-oohn, oohn-oohn. The door opened and the music came to focus, intermingled with the wafting scent of pot. Good start.
"Heeyh," I was greeted by a DudeBro in sweats and a snapback. Ke$ha was out with friends, apparently.
"Hey, I'm here to look at the room?"
"Aoh. Yah."
And so the tour began.
I was taking off my boots by the doormat as he extended his arm to the rest of the space by the door, "so this is thuh kitchen…" And yes, the fridge was right next to the front door. We walked up the stairs past "one of thuh bathrums." "Ah, it's… a good… bathroom. Good… size," I generously observed. We progressed through the rest of the warren, looking into occasional rooms, where I would nod approval, while my brain was silently screaming a World of No. By the end of the tour, after peering out to the back patio and quietly taking note of the Bong Shelf, I was wrapping my hand around the door handle, giving the If -I'm-Interested-I'll-Let-You-Know-But-For-Now-I-Must-Be-Off-To-Catch-A Bus-Whoops-Seeyoulaterbye spiel. DudeBro didn't even make a move to open the door for me, and I left, my eyes widening, slightly betraying my internal monologue.
The night air was dusted with traffic-light constellations which reflected off the ice. I did my dressage-pony walk down the side streets to Queen West. I was glad that the flat I had seen in the evening was so terribly terrible, it just made me even more sure about going for the musicians' house. But I don't know… only two months? And what if they don't even say yes? It felt right, though. I had a feeling in my gut that I was meant to have gone to that flat that morning… perhaps I was even meant to live there? I didn't know. We would see.
I walked through the Toronto streets, the passing cars, the spots of lampposts echoing endlessly down the long avenues; the city hummed with an energy that I knew I was falling in love with. Moments like this, when I could just walk through the city and not worry, not worry about what I was meant to be doing in the next week, next day, or even the next hour, seemed too few and far between. I'd been in Canada almost three weeks now, and the same questions still plagued me every day: What am I doing here? Am I just bumming about the city? How much of what I can do relies on other people? This is supposed to be the time of my life where I'm out, doing crazy things, being young and adventurous and stupid, being twenty-two-hoou! So why aren't I? What am I doing, on a day-to-day basis? I could be doing anything that I want to do… so what's stopping me from just getting into town on a bus and wandering around the city…?
And then, after a late-night bus journey North, I'm back in Barrie. I spend the next day writing songs and banging out ideas on the piano. In the evening, I'm crying my eyes out. But not because I'm lonely. And not because I was still waiting to hear back from the amazing musician's flat. I'm crying because the Titanic is making its way to the bottom of the ocean and Jack's stopped talking to Rose because he's frozen to death in the Arctic Ocean. Also I'm crying because, well, Leonardo Di Caprio. As and when the advert breaks come up, I turn my attention to my computer where I'm writing this blog post. It's just not exciting, I think. Should I be doing more? Should I be running around like Ke$hagirl with a We-Found-Love montage of late-night parties and making out in chip shops in a low aperture setting?
instead I am walking the dog
I got a message through from my cousin who's been living in France for the past five months. Something she wrote stuck out at me: how she'd be miserable during the day sometimes, but by the time she went to bed, she had something to smile about, even if it was just a little thing. I thought about my little things. These were the important things. When the flat-hunt, the job-hunt and the search for friends wore down on me, I could always refer to my own little things:
Playing this song on the piano way too often (you knowww that ghost is meeee....)
The view I get of the CN Tower every time the bus drives in to the city
The sunsets in Ontario where the sun just melts into the horizon
Snow - I used to hate snow in Edinburgh, but here, snow is AMAZING
Storm the dog, who last night tried to get my attention while I was glued to Titanic by accidentally punching me in the head
A loose-leaf tea called Movie Night which has actual bits of popcorn in it
Leonardo DiCaprio circa 1990's...
when formatting Leonardo DiCaprio for the blog, the larger and more ridiculous the picture, the better, I reckoned
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